Page 51 - The Way to the Top

Steve CODY

Managing Partner and Cofounder of Peppercom, Inc.

One of my valued mentors was the CEO of an international management
consulting firm who, at the time, was in his mid-sixties and suffering from
severe emphysema. I was about twenty-eight years old and just beginning

my career in public relations. In five years of reporting directly to him, he
never failed to be polite to me and always answered each and every one of
my questions with patience and sagacity. When I once thanked him for his
kindness, he said to me, “I’m being kind to you because I want you to

understand how important it is to be kind to younger people. I want you to
help younger people as you grow and mature the same way I have with
you.” While those words were simple, they have been extremely important
to me and have helped me build an international public relations firm that

is consistently rated by our employees to be one of the best workplaces in
America.

Another mentor was a CEO who, at the time, was head of one of the
larger PR firms in the country. At one point, we were involved in pitching
a significant piece of new business. As we prepared, he and I went back

and forth on whether to take a conservative or provocative approach in the
proposal we’d be submitting. I erred on the side of caution and he
demurred. We went into the pitch and found out later that another firm had

beaten us. This CEO’s postmortem advice was to not be afraid of failure.
He told me that if I wasn’t afraid to risk failure, I’d probably never
succeed. That advice proved prescient: it took a major failure at a large
agency in order for me to take the risk of starting my own business eight
years ago. Today, my firm is one of the top independent public relations

firms in the country. I’ve succeeded because I was willing to take a
chance.